Seeing Prairie: Taking a Look at its Reconstruction
Online/Virtual
In recent years there has been a growing interest in Illinois native tallgrass prairie, which once dominated the landscape, but has almost totally disappeared. As a result there have been numerous efforts to reconstruct some semblance of that prairie. This will be a discussion of one such project that started over forty years ago in northern Ford County near the village of Kempton.
Presenter Bio
Don Gardner's childhood was on a small dairy farm on the south edge of Kempton. On an adjacent railroad right-of-way he saw small populations of uncommon plants that once had been part of the vast Grand Prairie of Central Illinois. That early interest continued to slowly develop and many years later he returned to start a prairie reconstruction project that has been underway since 1974. Over the years he has had scientific papers published as well as general interest prairie articles and has presented classes, tours, and discussions of prairie.